Kinect for Windows 1.5 coming soon, comes with new language support

In a new blog post, Microsoft outlines the next release for the Kinect for Windows SDK. Version 1.5 brings new language support as well as several new features. On top of that, Kinect for Windows will launch in nineteen more countries.

Kinect for Windows 1.5 will soon be available in nineteen more countries, such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, in addition to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

Kinect for Windows 1.5 will also feature Kinect Studio, which is an application that allows Kinect developers to record, playback, and debut clips of users engaging with their Kinect apps. “Also coming is what we call “seated” or “10-joint” skeletal tracking, which provides the capability to track the head, neck and arms of either a seated or standing user. What is extra exciting to me about this functionality is that it will work in both default and near mode!” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.

There will also be support for new languages for speech recognition, such as French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. Kinect for Windows 1.5 is due in late May of this year.